


Of Magnets and Poles

by chaifiction



Category: Ocean's (Movies)
Genre: Lengthly Metaphors, M/M, Matt Damon Is A Cutie, Rusty Ryan Is Broken And I Love Him, Unrequited Love, i made myself sad writing this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 11:05:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14042889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaifiction/pseuds/chaifiction
Summary: Rusty has never been known to be any good at resisting forces of nature trying to pull him in, so here he is, and he thinks that’s good, and he thinks that it’s fine. It's something to keep Rusty moving, to keep him out of his calculated, exact mind and to make him whole, to keep him from feeling naked and alone, and isn’t that love?





	Of Magnets and Poles

Rusty is losing Danny from the minute he meets him. People often think that Rusty is made of high energy, that he is the uncontrolled one, when they first meet them. It’s easy to believe, looking at the pair of them, what with Rusty’s messy hair and loud shirts, and Danny’s coiffed locks and understated suits. But Rusty is calculated, exact. He knows everything he’s going to do weeks before he does it. Danny is a force of nature. Every move he makes is a whirlwind, and he sweeps up the people around him, whirls them around, and spits them out. It isn’t hurtful though, it isn’t careless. To think Danny Ocean doesn’t care about the people around him would be a grave mistake. He cares a lot. Too much, maybe. It’s how he swept Rusty Ryan up like a high tide in a storm.

Rusty has learned how to predict Danny’s whirlwind, but not to control it. He doesn’t think that is possible, and even if it was he isn’t sure he would want to. Because then it wouldn’t be Danny. The man that, against all of Rusty’s better, calculated, exact judgment, he loves. Fiercely and deeply and in a way that feels as though it might consume him. And privately. Because Danny loves Rusty, but he doesn’t know how Rusty does. Rusty has been a misplaced tide in Danny’s whirlwind for so long that he can’t see the shore. But Danny is always moving, dragging Rusty along, along, as long as he can keep up.

The first time Rusty first starts to feel Danny spin away from him, feel the winds begin to slow, is the day they meet Tess. Danny’s winds diverge instantly, wrapping around this new thing, the next thing, the uncontrolled thing. The risk, the gamble. Rusty is still there, still along for the ride that is being loved by Danny Ocean, but he isn't the only one, not anymore. Even when Danny and Tess get married, Rusty is still trapped, held in the throes of this storm. He never had Danny, not really, but Danny had always had him.

When Danny goes to jail, it doesn’t stop. It is as if the winds have just picked up, and everything is Danny, everything is waiting for Danny, and worrying about Danny, for five years, and when he gets out, and Tess is gone, everything is Danny and Rusty again as if nothing has changed. Rusty has tunnel vision, as much tunnel vision as he can safely have while pulling the con of their lives, and at the end of the tunnel is Danny. Danny, shining and smiling and charming. It’s obvious, it’s visible to everyone in the crew, except Danny. It’s not that Danny is careless with him, not intentionally anyway, but it’s that his mind is on the con, and as Rusty finds out (Linus finds out), the con is Tess, and he’s losing Danny again, and fast, and Rusty wonders how he ever thought he had a grasp on him.

They pull the con, they win big, they take the house. And Tess takes Danny, and everyone watches it happen, watches Rusty slip away at the end of the night, not chasing Danny’s car, pretending the last gusts of wind tossing his hair aren’t pulling him softly towards it. And Rusty disappears, and they all worry. Phone calls pass between Reuben and Saul, trying not to say the words but asking nonetheless, where Rusty has gone, where he could be. Basher gets distracted, on cons, his hands stilling on a mechanism he’s supposed to have finished already, thinking he sees a flash of blonde hair passing by a stakeout van. Linus worries alone and worries deep, and doesn’t talk to anyone about it, ever, because who is he going to call? But three to six months later, Rusty is there, waiting to pick Danny up, and waiting for Danny to pick him back up, and nobody worries out loud but they all worry.

He is swept up again, but anything that is there is fake, is half-hearted. Rusty feels like he is clinging to something that cannot be held by physical hands, air slipping through his fingers. Danny has Tess, and Tess has Danny, and for the first time in their lives, Rusty is an afterthought. He lets himself float away, but those winds still tug at his back, an afterthought for sure, but a thought nonetheless. The pull is a security blanket, a comfort. Rusty doesn’t know who he is without it, knows it intimately, like the tide knows and relies on the shore. He drifts, he disappears again, and everyone wonders when they will be able to stop pretending to not be worrying about Rusty.

Danny calls them all together one day, and Rusty comes running, of course he does, to be with friends again, he tells himself, and to be with him again, he doesn’t tell himself, but it isn’t a job. It isn’t an invitation to hop back on that whirling, dizzying ride. Tess is pregnant, and Danny wants to share it with his closest friends. The ones who helped him get her back.

Everyone cheers, including Rusty, and drinks are poured and people move, out onto the courtyard. Danny steps out of the room, and everyone steps out of the room, and Rusty sits there. The air around him is cold and still. For the first time in his life, he feels nothing. Calculated, exact. Just Rusty. It’s terrifying, and it’s empty. Rusty feels naked, like he’s suddenly exposed, like he’s missing an arm, all of a sudden, with no idea where it’s gone. He grips at his chair and doesn’t leave the room.

He starts when he feels a hand on his shoulder. Not Danny. Smaller, gentler.

“Hey.” A soft voice. Linus. “Hey, Rusty, it’s okay.”

Linus leans over the back of Rusty’s chair, so close his breath ghosts over Rusty’s ear, sending a different kind of chill through his body. Rusty reaches up and grips Linus’ hand, desperately, a lifeline.

“It’s okay.” Even softer, as Linus’ mouth falls below Rusty’s ear, pressing there softly, wetly, before moving down along his neck, hair tickling the side of Rusty’s face, and they are cheek to warm cheek, and Linus’ other hand wraps across his chest, holding him, tightly, securing him, keeping him there, on earth, stopping him from floating away from shore. Rusty lets his head roll back and welcomes the kisses that Linus lands on his neck and falls, falls, falls into him.

* * *

 

Linus’ energy moves constantly, too, but not the way Danny’s does. It’s not uncontained, whipping around wildly. It’s a bomb ticking that will never explode, it’s not wired that way, but it twitches like a pressure point, constantly jittering and drawing in everything around it, for better or for worse. It’s like he’s a magnetic pole, and Rusty has never been known to be any good at resisting forces of nature trying to pull him in, so here he is, and he thinks that’s good, and he thinks that it’s fine, and Linus is young and Linus is awkward and Linus is a lot, but Linus isn’t too much, and Linus is sweet in every sense of the word, and he is full of life and complexities, and he loves Rusty and Rusty thinks that he might love him too. He’s something to keep Rusty moving, to keep him out of his calculated, exact mind and to make him whole, to keep him from feeling naked and alone, and isn’t that love?

Rusty doesn’t think about the lack of wind in the air anymore, except on nights where Linus sleeps in some exotic place, tanned skin twisted up in tangled sheets, spread across the bed and taking up all of Rusty’s space, beautiful and still, for once, and Rusty cannot sleep, going and looking out the window at the moonlit sky when a light breeze brushes his face and his throat catches and he is pulled back, just for a second.

But he turns and he shuts the window, and he pushes Linus over and he kisses his shoulder, and Linus stirs and flings his arm over Rusty’s chest, always touching, always a part of him, and Rusty can sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Ocean's Eleven has been one of my favorite movies for a long time, but I rewatched it recently and it broke me wide open. Many thanks to my friend Zhenya for supporting me through this time of Brad Pitt spiraling and for reading this fic first.


End file.
